KINGSTON, Jamaica – Former President of the People’s National Party (PNP) Dr Peter Phillips says Jamaica needs a mobilisation, the type of which was last seen in the 1940s and 1950s in the lead up to independence, to tackle the myriad problems facing the country.

Phillips, who was addressing the public session of the PNP’s 84th Annual Conference inside the National Arena a short while ago, said Jamaica’s education system was in need of an urgent overhaul as too many children were failing.

“More than 50 per cent of the students come to an end of high school and don’t meet the minimum qualifications for passing exams. Things can’t gwaan that way,” he declared.

The former PNP president pointed to the report on the overhaul of the education sector by Professor Orland Patterson that shows that at the end of primary school, six out of 10 students could not pass mathematics.

On the crime front, the former Minister of National Security said it was unacceptable that Jamaica had the second highest murder rate in the world.

“I don’t come here to blame anyone for this unacceptable situation,” Phillips stated while noting that there was enough blame to go around.

“I will take my share if I need to but I’m not so much concerned about the past, I’m concerned about the future and I believe that the People’s National Party is, and must be an essential part of building that future and securing a better future for the Jamaican people,” he said.

“It will require a mobilisation of the nation such as that which the PNP undertook in the 1940s and 50s that led to independence and ushered in modern Jamaica,” he added.

Phillips told the PNP faithful that the party will need to go through the highways and byways, in the community centres and the schoolrooms and the church halls with the vision.

“We will need a new generation of volunteers and patriots to take up this mission,” he said while urging young people to get involved.

Said Phillips: “As they say in the good book (the Bible) we call upon you because you’re strong, now is your vision”.

“You will have to instill a new patriotic fervor, a new spirit of community where each one will teach one and not a country where each one, kill one. Jamaica is better than that. We can do better that that as a people,” Phillips insisted.